School bathroom

I found a very different experience. I was at school in the 70’s/80’s in a good school.

We were absolutely wild. The schools l taught in just weren’t ever that bad.

Maybe we were just extra bad?

Schools are certainly not stricter then since the 60's. I was in high school in the 90's and my school was way stricter then the schools I've had experience of now. We weren't allowed to loiter around the corridors during lunch every child was outside unless it absolutely bucketed down, even if it was freezing we were out. We had to stand up whenever any adult entered the room, there was no going to the toilet during lesson time. Forgetting your PE kit resulted in litter picking for the whole lesson. Those are just some of the rules I remember.

And I would never go to the toilet during the school day unless desperate as that is where the bullies hung out.
The toilet situation is no better now, my current school converted all the old ones into unisex so at lest a teacher can be on duty by the open ones but we still have lots of issues.
My kids have said at their school, they also won't use the toilet unless absolutely desperate even with open plan unisex toilets.

And who said you need 1 toilet for every 20 pupil, most schools in the UK are to old to have that many.

@INeedToClingToSomething sometimes children aren’t safe if they use the toilets

How would you solve it then? Bearing in mind there’s not enough money to pay teaching or support staff.

This happened at my school back in the day. Most frustrating part was that the teachers weren't aware so if you asked out to the toilet, they would ask why you didn’t go at lunch and then didn’t believe you when you said it was because all the toilets were locked

We had to close one set of toilets last year after they were blocked and flooded. The site team did not enjoy literally paddling through shit.

Restricting access to toilets isn't "keeping children safe". It's barbaric and isn't the answer.

@Hobbi do countries with less SEND funding include SEND children in mainstream school or just let their families look after them outside of education

It’s not just about vaping though.

I was a secondary school teacher for 25 years. Yea we know toilets need to be open, but here’s a list of behaviour that stopped rh being opened in my school. They were only ever closed due to damage or vandalisation. But there was still one or two shut every day.

Pissing on the floor on purpose ( boys happened every week, enough to flood the toilets)
Turning the taps on and leaving them to floos
Kicking locks off doors/ smashing doors
Wiping menstrual blood or shit everywhere
Deliberately cracking basins
Setting fire to bins

One of these things or similar happened every single day. In an Ofsted outstanding school in a wealthy area leafy suburb type place

Every day.

Not enough money for teaching and support staff. What are schools supposed to do about toilets when this happens? Keep them open until the school floods or burns down?

It's not a huge amount of money in the grand scheme of costs and they have been successfully used to deter toilet vaping in many schools - the presence of the detector alone would deter a lot of students who are presumably doing it in the toilets to try and not get caught

@crumblingschools

Not all schools are trying to solve the problem. The head in this article was found to have misled the public and press.

westleedsdispatch.com/farnley-academy-students-protest-over-locked-toilets/

And I'm afraid a lot of other countries don't have anything like the agencies and SEND support we throw money at. I agree they value education more though.

@Hobbi Its not uniquely English. I've seen an article in the news today about Scotland.

As for countries that aren't in the UK, I suspect the reasons are multi faceted and possibly include:

Funded education and support systems in other countries.
Provision for SEN including schools for students with learning difficulties, non funded mainstream isn't working here.
Parents with boundaries.
Schools and systems that are allowed consequences for shit behaviour and the responsibility is with the parents, not school.
The UK has a low respect for education generally, and this attitude has got worse.
Other countries value education.

@Hobbi do you think schools are locking toilets for the fun of it, do you not think they are trying to find solutions? Because locking toilets is down to many behavioural factors which they are also trying to find solutions to.

Maybe other countries have more external agencies working with families, maybe schools have more funding so can have staff walking the corridors, maybe other countries have better quality school buildings so can have more and better sited toilets

Maybe families in other countries value education more.

Attendance figures in schools are horrendous, when surveyed many parents have said post lockdown they don't worry/care if their child misses school because no-one cared whether they were there during lockdown (nothing to do with power crazy MATS)

Ok, it's not right so a solution, enabling them to access toilet facilities is urgently needed. That's the immediate task at hand. And schools are duty bound to find that solution. Once done, they can tell us how difficult it was, but do it they must.

Agree with some others that some schools lock toilets during lessons. At my secondary school in early 00's the only toilets open all day long were on the ground floor, the ones that were upstairs were hardly ever unlocked, even during lesson change overs and lunch times. Really, really poor management

@Hercisback

I'll ask you a similar question then; why does this seem to be a unique characteristic of English children and schools?

I am not defending academy chains.

Do we know if OP's school is even part of an academy?

No it is not right that children can't go to the toilet, but as I have said many children don't go to the toilets even if they are open

Most schools have some sort of toilet control now, not just the big name academy trust run ones.

Schools are reacting to, in most cases, shit parenting. When there was trust, parenting boundaries and positive relationships, toilets didn't get trashed.

You can have all the positive relationships in the world now, but the 5% of students will trash it for everyone.

I've very recently stopped doing that, whether I take it up again is down to health considerations. I've already said, schools which develop relationships with children tend to have fewer issues like this. Schools that have stifling behaviour policies and teachers with no apparent training in how teenagers think, feel and learn do. Also, this is a parenting site and you are suggesting every child in every school spends time in some sort of apocalyptic hell every day and that depriving them of their rights to sanitation is the only solution.
I wonder if all the parents on here recognise their children as being unable to go to the loo without turning feral?
I've answered your questions, answer this: is it acceptable to deny young people access to the toilet? That's what this thread is about, not an opportunity to defend academy chains, poor lambs.

What's the point in a vape alarm? So we can get extra conformation someone is vaping...

I'm sure I've read this on a local FB page too so think you're local to me - my children don't go here but those of friends do. Apparently lots of food gets thrown down the loos!

The school l worked out used to have problems with kids going I the toilets and leaving the taps switched on.

This caused 10k deliberate damage 4 times. This was in a nice school.

@Barleysugar86 who is going to pay for them? Who is going to monitor them? Not much help if a vape alarm goes off and there is no-one around to sort it

@Hobbi so if you visit schools and discuss those issues what are you doing about it and what is your solution?

Many of the things I listed are things out of the schools control (whether they are control freaks or not). If a child has behavioural needs and there is no external agency to help them and no funding in school, what is the school meant to do. Children are on waiting lists for years to get external help. Why is that a power craze MAT's fault?

They make vape detectors, they are very similar to smoke alarms. If vaping is the problem closing the toilet block would be a bit of an overreaction when simpler solutions exist.